The quick breakdown of a ceasefire in Aleppo gives Syrian dictator and mass killer Bashar al-Assad the upper hand in his vicious assault on the remaining pockets of Aleppo not held by Assad's troops. An evacuation of civilians in those areas was the goal of the ceasefire. However, backed by his ally and weapons supplier Vladimir "Vlad the Invader" Putin and Iranian militia ground forces, Syrian government forces resumed pounding civilian targets with airstrikes and artillery shelling. Said the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad al Hussein,
"While the reasons for the breakdown in the ceasefire are disputed, the resumption of extremely heavy bombardment by the Syrian government forces and their allies on an area packed with civilians is almost certainly a violation of international law and most likely constitutes war crimes."Eighteen months ago, Putin deployed Russian aircraft to assist Assad in his attempt to retain control of Syria, long a Russian client state. Earlier this week, the U.N. human rights office reported that they'd received information that systematic, execution-style killings of civilians, including women and children were underway by Assad's forces and his allies. Women were reportedly choosing suicide over rape by the government forces as they advanced through the city.
Looking to tighten his grip on Syria, Assad is now mimicking Putin's approach to neo-fascist sociopath Donald "Rump" Trump by saying he could be Syria's "natural ally" in the fight against "terrorism" (i.e., Assad's internal enemies only). It would be the ugliest of hypocrisies if Rump took him up on that, and found himself in bed not only with (again) Putin, but Assad's other allies, the Iranians, who just weeks ago were the prime villain in the wingnut world, and who the Rethuglicans cynically used as a cudgel to try to block the nuclear non-proliferation deal President Obama had crafted.
